War on the Shore: Wye House holds key significance

Richard Tilghman kneels beside the grave of Gen. Charles S. Winder and his wife, Alice, at Wye House. Winder, killed in action during the Civil War at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, was the second cousin of Gen. John H. Winder and a nephew of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.(Photo: Staff photo by Brice Stump)Buy Photo

The long, tree-lined lane leading to Wye House, near Easton, passes by the front door of the mansion that has greeted the rich and famous for centuries.

Through its doors have passed plantation owners, slaves, the poorest, the wealthiest, the most powerful people of Colonial Maryland. Here, too, have passed some of the most famous personalities in Civil War history.

In a room bathed in warm sunlight, Wye House owner Richard Tilghman noted the guests that have been entertained in his home.

On an antique table sits an original autographed photo of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife. They came to Wye House on Dec. 1, 1867. It has been on display since Jefferson presented it to his host, Col. Edward Lloyd.

Davis had come to visit Lloyd's waterside neighbor, Admiral Franklin Buchanan, the Confederate's first admiral. Lloyd hosted a reception at Wye House for Davis, and several hundred locals came to the mansion to greet the president.

A newspaper account of the historic event noted that Davis spoke of his upcoming book on the Confederacy and graciously provided numerous autographs to those present.

Yet, Tilghman said, there seems to have been a social faux pas at some point with Davis.

"Of course we were hospitable," Tilghman said, "but something happened during the visit. The story I've heard through the family is that President Davis said, 'I thought I was among gentle people, but I was wrong.' He left in a huff and left a very insulting note, but his picture is still on the table and never got taken down. "

Tilghman thinks the president may have been offended by one of the many guests. Nevertheless, family lore holds that Davis was irritated with some incident at Wye House.

It has come down to Tilghman to be the modern-day "lord of the manor," and he continues to share the hospitality that has made Wye House famous. With permission, he allows visitors access to the graveyard behind the house to see the tombstones of two famous officers who fought for the Southern Cause.

Oft-visited graves

A modest tombstone marks the grave of Admiral Franklin Buchanan, the first admiral of the Confederate Navy. Buchanan captained the ironclad CSS Virginia during the Battle of Hampton Roads in Virginia.

Unfortunately, while the ironclad was shelling the frigate USS Congress, a zealous Buchanan took to the deck of the CSS Virginia, firing a carbine at the soon-to-be-sunk frigate. He was struck by a minie ball in the thigh, an injury that kept him from serving as captain during the famous battle between the CSS Virginia and the ironclad USS Monitor.

Buchanan would also secure his role in history as the first superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and president of the Maryland Agricultural College. He died in 1874 and his grave is annually visited by former crewmen of the USS Buchanan (class DDG-14, a guided missile destroyer), which was decommissioned in 1991. The ship was sunk as a target off Hawaii in 2000. The group annually places a wreath honoring Buchanan's birthday.

One tombstone in particular is almost a holy relic to those immersed in Confederate history. A modest-size, dark stone obelisk on a square plinth doesn't even bear an epitaph noting the contributions of the man buried beneath: Gen. Charles Sidney Winder.

The Easton-born Winder was a nephew of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.

Charles Winder, who served under Stonewall Jackson, because famous as a strict disciplinarian. For a number of reasons, Winder was not respected or liked by officers and soldiers under him and, according to Civil War lore, the dislike that bordered hatred encouraged rumors that Winder would likely be killed by his own men during a battle.

Fate got Winder first. During a battle at Cedar Mountain, in Virginia, on Aug. 9, 1862, Winder was hit by a Union shell. He died hours later.

Winder was buried first near the town of Orange Court House, Virginia. His body was later moved to Richmond for a state funeral and reburied there. Years later, at the request of the family, it was finally interred in the graveyard at Wye House.

"The are some Confederates buffs that seem to have a life mission of visiting the grave site of every Confederate general. So from time to time they come up here wanting to look in the graveyard," Tilghman said

These two great figures of the Confederacy rest in the arms of eternity, among the prestigious dead of the Lloyd family. Gen. Charles Winder married a daughter of Edward Lloyd VI. Buchanan married a daughter of Gov. Edward Lloyd V.

Distant relations

Buchanan was also a Wye House neighbor, living for years at "The Rest." His home, now gone, stood on bank of the Miles River.

Winder's second cousin was Gen. John Henry Winder, who was born at Rewston, once a plantation near Nanticoke.

Like Gen. Charles S. Winder, Gen. John Henry Winder would also come to be hated. He would be in command of Libby Prison and then the infamous Andersonville Prison. Winder, who appointed Capt. Henry Wirz as prison camp commandant, would be accused of starving thousands of Union prisoners in his care.

An iron plaque, placed by the Maryland Civil War Centennial Commission and notes Winder's military career, stands on the lawn of the old Wicomico County Courthouse in Salisbury.

Also in the Winder family was another other famous general to come from Somerset County: Gen. Arnold Elzey (Jones).

Elzey, who dropped his last name in his youth, was related distantly — by marriage — to Winder.

Elzey is remembered for his numerous battle engagements At the Battle of Cross Keys, he was wounded in the leg when his horse was shot from under him. During the Battle of Gaines Mill, Elzey was shot in the head. He is remembered among the very few men to receive a battlefield promotion by President Jefferson Davis.

To this day, his legacy is kept alive on the Shore through the Maj. Gen. Arnold Elzey Camp No. 1940 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans group, which meets at American Legion Post 64 in Salisbury.

There is also a third Civil War hero buried at Wye House, a figure about which little is known. On an obelisk-styled tombstone, almost as large as that of Winder's, the carved letters tell little of the man buried there. "To the memory of Charles T. (Tilghman) Lloyd, Born Oct 22nd 1842, Died July 3, 1863. Brave, Noble Hearted, and Beloved."

Talbot County historian Jim Dawson revealed the story the stone doesn't tell. "He was the third son of James M. and Elizabeth C. Lloyd and was a private in the 2nd Maryland Regiment. He was killed at Gettysburg."

Tilghman said he can explain why the Confederate information is missing from his stone and that of Winder's.

"The way my mother told it, everybody on the Eastern Shore was so worried about being labeled a Confederate they weren't going to bury anyone here with Confederate on the tombstones because they didn't know what the ramifications would be after the war," he said.

A visit by Frederick Douglass

Not buried here, but also a member of the Lloyd family of Wye House, was Confederate Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, who was born in nearby Claiborne, in Talbot County. A construction engineer, Tilghman was instrumental in building forts during the Civil War. He was killed at age 47 when a shell struck him in the chest.

"He was part of the famous Lloyd family," said Dawson. "His great-grandmother was Ann Lloyd, the daughter of James Lloyd, who was born in 1690. His father was Col. Edward Lloyd, a Colonial governor of Maryland (1709 to 1714). Col. Lloyd was a key figure in the history of Wye House and is buried in the graveyard there."

Gen. Lloyd made news recently when his 15-star Confederate battle flag, one of only two such known flags in this star count, was auctioned for $60,000.

It was in this graveyard that the internationally famous former slave, Frederick Douglass, came to see the tombs of the Lloyd family. His guide would be Charles Howard Lloyd, the great-grandson of his former master.

"Frederick Douglass was a great statesman and came here in 1881, the story goes, to pay his respects to the Lloyd family and to visit the widow of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.

"My great-grandfather, Charles Howard Lloyd (who Douglass called Mr. Howard), greeted him at the back steps. Edward Lloyd the seventh, who was Charles's father, was 'unavailable.' In post reconstruction, for a white plantation owner on the Eastern Shore to entertain a black man was a big deal," Tilghman said. "Charles was young then, and Douglass, being also a great showman, made sure everyone in Talbot County knew he was coming. A number of African American people were on the front lawn of Wye House to see him.

"My great-aunt always said that someone around Douglas told him he should make an address to the crowd and he refused. But I don't know if that is true."

Charles Howard Lloyd picked a bouquet of flowers and evergreens at Douglass' request, so the former slave could take a bit of Wye House history back to his home.

By the time Douglass arrived at Wye House, Tilghman said, the estate was well on the path to hard times.

"The mansion and former plantation were in bad trouble. Most of these plantations on the Eastern Shore and throughout the South fell on hard times following the abolition of slavery and the economic recessions that occurred in the 1870s," he said. "My great-grandfather had married a woman from Baltimore who was fairly well off. He used his wife's money to bail this place out," Tilghman said. "He became the owner of Wye House on his father's death around 1910."

Defending Wye House

Had Wye House been located in the deep South, it may have been burned by Federal troops. The closest it came to being threatened may have been over a demand for wine.

The tale was told that Federal troops called upon Wye House one day, and relied on their reputation as thieves and lawless thugs to take whatever they wanted from Southern sympathizers.

Author William Paul, in his booklet "Despot's Heel on Talbot," printed in 1966, would call the visit "The Battle of Wye House."

"Mrs. Mary Howard Lloyd, daughter of Francis Scott Key, then mistress of Wye House, was slight of build but of determined spirit," Paul wrote. Knowing that Federal troops were on their way to her home, she locked all the doors to the mansion and put the keys on a rocker seat on the front porch, sat down and waited for the soldiers.

When they came to the porch, she could tell they were inebriated. They wanted, the lieutenant told her, the keys to the wine cellar.

"Mrs. Lloyd was sorry. She didn't know where the keys to the wine cellar were," Paul wrote. "The request was politely repeated several times, and politely answered as before. Hours went by, and as evening approached, while the gentle noise of a rocking chair mingled with the songs of birds, the blue forces folded their tents and stole away."

Tilghman has his doubts about the authenticity of the story. "I never heard it before in the family," he said.

Wye House and the graveyard have passed through the centuries intact. History remains ever close at hand. Just a few years ago, workmen in the attic discovered a Springfield Arms Co. musket hidden in the woodwork. Made between 1795 and 1804, the musket is thought to have been used by the local militia when the British attacked St. Michaels in 1813.

"I think it was hidden to keep Federal troops from confiscating it during the Civil War," Tilghman said. "It was forgotten about for the past 150 years. It seems like there is always something to discover around here. "